


Someone Else

by Whalex



Category: Given (Anime), Given (Manga)
Genre: Gen, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29189904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whalex/pseuds/Whalex
Summary: This story was a long time in the making and is quite silly in retrospect. Something to note is that I alter the circumstances of Yuki's death, so if that makes you uncomfortable it would be better to not read it.
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was a long time in the making and is quite silly in retrospect. Something to note is that I alter the circumstances of Yuki's death, so if that makes you uncomfortable it would be better to not read it.

“Don’t you think it’s dangerous to get involved with him?”

Ayano’s face was a cruel mixture of spite and desire. Why would she tell him this? Ritsuka couldn’t help but get a chill up his spine. _Mafuyu had a boyfriend? The boyfriend died? What could be dangerous about that? For the most part, death isn’t contagious… right?_

“I’m sorry,” Ayano said. “My friend said that it was a really dramatic time. They sent out search parties and everything but-“

“I don’t want to hear it,” Ritsuka said. “I gotta go.”

Ritsuka collected his belongings and made his way to the hallway. He had been seeing Mafuyu frequently and introducing him to the band. Mafuyu was so interested in everything he was doing, how could he be dangerous? _What does his old boyfriend have to do with it?_ If anything, this was a time where Mafuyu needed someone the most. He sat in self-induced solitary confinement on those steps that Ritsuka always visited. Mafuyu was abandoned without closure.

Ritsuka entered the stairwell, but Mafuyu wasn’t there. The air was denser than usual, though, based on the heaviness in Ritsuka’s lungs. It was probably just the panic.

“Hey Uenoyama-kun.” The boy came in right behind Ritsuka. “Are we going to go practice?”

“Oh, uh…” How did he get here so soon after Ritsuka? Did he follow him? “…Yeah we can do that.”

Really, he was always following Ritsuka. He was like a dog looking for a new owner. Mafuyu wanted someone else.  



	2. Chapter 2

Hiiragi had run into Mafuyu on a prior night, and now it was time to clear the air. He knew the general time Mafuyu was getting off work, so he showed up and walked to the nearby vending machines with him. They leaned on the railing with their drinks.

Hiiragi began, “Last time we talked was at the funeral. You started playing music?”

“Yeah.”

“Took you long enough.”

“Yeah.”

“As talkative as ever, I see.” Hiiragi said, taking a sip of his soda. “When did we meet? 3 years ago?”

Mafuyu took his time responding. As usual. “Something like that.”

“I knew Yuki since childhood… That’s his guitar, right?”

“His mom told me to take it.”

Hiiragi sighed. “I don’t even get how she found it.”

Mafuyu perked up at this and moved in closer. “What do you mean?”

“Well…” Hiiragi said, pulling back to regain some distance. “He brought that thing everywhere, and we never found him…”

Mafuyu now pulled back. In fact, he pushed off the railing and pivoted to stand in front of Hiiragi. “He must have left it home that day.”

Hiiragi felt a cold flush of fear wash over him. “Y-yeah, he must have left it…”

“Yeah, he left it,” Mafuyu said before walking away. Hiiragi could only feel like Mafuyu had become someone else.


	3. Chapter 3

Ritsuka paced around his living room. It had been a few days, they had practiced more, and now Ritsuka had finished the preliminary track for the song. _What danger could a quiet, cute orange-haired boy cause? …Did Ritsuka just call Mafuyu cute?_

*knock knock*

Oh shit! Ritsuka forgot Akihiko was coming by to hear the track!

He let the drummer in. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted in with the cold air around him. Gross.

They listened to the track and hammered out some of the final details.

“I like the sort of ominous vibe you built in to the bassline,” Akihiko said.

“…Huh?”

“Yeah, the bassline has that spooky vibe, like we’re waiting in line at a haunted house.”

“I didn’t intend that at all.”

Akihiko chuckled. “I see, you probably did it involuntarily. It fits Mafuyu.”

Ritsuka went deep red. “W-what? I didn’t even think about him while making it.”

“I heard his voice that night.” Akihiko smirked. “A chill went down my spine when I heard him sing. I thought it was mostly due to being shocked, but the more I thought about it, the more it felt dangerous.”

_Again with the danger? How is a cute little puppy-like boy with wide eyes and a pretty voice dangerous? …Did he just call his voice pretty?_

Akihiko dropped the subject and left with the track on a flashdrive. It worried Ritsuka that he heard the same idea from someone else.


	4. Chapter 4

Haruki was fighting his curiosity as hard as possible after practice. Mafuyu had this melancholy aura about him, and Haruki knew barely anything about him. Still, he bit his tongue. It wasn’t his place to pry. Haruki rounded the corner to find Mafuyu at a vending machine, alone. They wordlessly went about their actions until Mafuyu broke the silence.

“Haruki-san, do you have someone you love?”

Haruki instinctively pulled his head back, nearly pulling the muscle in his neck. “What? Me?”

“I had someone I loved,” Mafuyu continued. Haruki felt a pang of sadness, but when he looked at Mafuyu, his eyebrows were knit and he had a fire in his eyes. “I know you want to know more.”

Haruki was taken even more aback by this. “Am I that obvious?”

“Don’t pry,” Mafuyu said. “Losing love can be contagious.”

Haruki had no idea where this was coming from. He also had no idea what Mafuyu meant. Mafuyu exited the small room. _Was he somehow threatening Haruki? Threatening Akihiko? Or was it someone else?_


	5. Chapter 5

It was another day on the sunlit steps in the back of the school gymnasium. Ritsuka wondered if maybe he liked the smell of sweaty boys. Probably. He and Mafuyu had been napping there a bit, but Ritsuka’s panic was preventing it from being restful.

“Uenoyama-kun,” Mafuyu said.

Ritsuka stuttered out a weak, “Y-yeah?”

“I’ve loved people in the past. I think I want to express that love, and maybe… move on.”

Chest tightened. Air was pulled from his lungs. Heat filled his body. Ritsuka had no idea what panic was until this moment. _He wants to move on?_

…Did he say people?

“People?” Ritsuka involuntarily blurted out.

“Yeah. They’re all lost to me, but I’ll always hold the love and excitement they felt. I want to share it with others.”

How many people did he date?

“You can share it through music,” Ritsuka said. “That’s how you can move on.”

“That’s not all I want though.” Mafuyu looked almost devious, like someone taking the last sushi roll off the platter.

Ritsuka tilted his head. “What do you want, then?”

“Someone else.”


	6. Chapter 6

“I finished the lyrics.”

Ritsuka, Haruki, and Akihiko all let out a “WHAT?”

Mafuyu held up some overworked pieces of paper. They had almost illegible scribblings on them. “We can practice the song.”

They had all just arrived at practice and were tuning their instruments. They hurried along with the buzz of creativity driving them. Without many words, they began playing.

“Madaaaa,” Mafuyu began, and immediately Ritsuka felt the weight of Mafuyu’s emotion. As the lyrics progressed, he felt not the excitement and love of those Mafuyu held previously, but the dread of losing those people himself. Ritsuka needed to focus on playing, otherwise he’d be consumed by the grief of those he never met.

Once the song ended, Ritsuka let the emotions come in. He knew he could never let Mafuyu go. Ritsuka was gay as fuck.

Akihiko looked at the boys, then loudly announced, “Okay Haruki, let’s go have a smoke. Great work everyone!” He pulled Haruki out the door, much to the bassist’s discontent.

“Did you like it?” Mafuyu asked.

“I loved it,” Ritsuka responded immediately.

Mafuyu paused and looked at the ground. He then looked up with a big smile. “Want to go on a date tomorrow night?”

Was he talking to Ritsuka? Was this happening? Was it real at all?

“YES.”

The boys sat in silent excitement until the adults returned. They left practice after running the song a dozen more times, and Ritsuka still wasn’t sure if Mafuyu was speaking to him or someone else.


	7. Chapter 7

After practice, Hiiragi was waiting outside Mafuyu’s apartment complex.

“Mafuyu!” Hiiragi shouted.

“Oh, Hiiragi.”

“Can we talk?”

Mafuyu hesitantly nodded, then motioned for Hiiragi to follow him up the stairs to his apartment. They went inside and Mafuyu locked the door. He placed the guitar case from his back onto the ground next to the door.

“Mafuyu… I can’t let go of Yuki,” Hiiragi said. His shoulders slumped. “He could still be out there, for all we know. How are you so composed?”

Mafuyu clenched his fist. “What do you know?”

“As much as you!” Hiiragi said, throwing his arms in the air.

“No. He’s not still out there.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You said it yourself, he brought his guitar with him everywhere. If he were still around, he would have taken it with him.”

“I guess you’re right,” Hiiragi said. He sighed, and then his eyes to the guitar case. “Can I look at it again?”

Mafuyu tensed up. “You don’t want to.”

Hiiragi nervously chuckled. “Now I want to even more.”

Hiiragi moved over to the guitar case quickly, knelt down, and unzipped it. Inside was a blue guitar that Hiiragi had never seen before.

“I told you that you didn’t want to,” Mafuyu said. Hiiragi snapped his head to look at Mafuyu. His stature looked higher, and Hiiragi felt absolute terror. “It’s a shame I broke the other one, it would have been the perfect story.”

In that moment, Hiiragi thought, _Why couldn’t Yuki have met someone else?_


	8. Chapter 8

Mafuyu had the great idea of coming to Ritsuka’s house before the date. He assured Ritsuka it would ease the nerves of his first date. Ritsuka loved it, since they could work on some music together.

From the moment Mafuyu arrived, his phone was blowing up. Every few minutes a new ding or call would go off, but Mafuyu simply ignored them. “I think my number got to some telemarketers,” was all he had to offer.

They worked on the song for the performance, but also tinkered with some new tracks. At some point they moved to Ritsuka’s room, since Yayoi decided now was a great time to binge some My Hero. After some time, Mafuyu remembered that he had some new lyrics in his bag. “I left it in the other room, let me go get it.”

Ritsuka just nodded, but seconds after Mafuyu left, he heard another ding. That phone was getting on his nerves. _Why wouldn’t Mafuyu put it on silent?_ In a lapse of his better judgment, Ritsuka grabbed the phone. _I’ll just silence it._

When he looked at the screen, he saw dozens of missed calls and a flurry of texts. The most recent one was from someone named Shizusumi, who had already texted him over twenty times. It simply read “Please call me back, I can’t have it happen again. Not after Yuki. It can’t happen to someone else.”


	9. Chapter 9

Ritsuka’s uneasiness over his first date shifted from the fear of romance to the fear of the unknown. Did he even know the guy he was dating? Others felt the danger he carried. Ritsuka was starting to feel it himself.

They got off the train and walked to the beach. They arrived on the sand once the sun had already gone down.

“Uenoyama-kun, how do you feel about the ocean?”

“Uh, I guess it’s calming?”

“You don’t need to be nervous.”

Ritsuka looked at Mafuyu, and the smile he was expecting wasn’t there. His face was completely serious.

“Sorry… I just feel so unsure about everything.”

“I get it. Most guys I’ve been with were scared around me.”

Ritsuka breathed in sharply. “How many guys have you dated?”

Mafuyu placed his hand on Ritsuka’s shoulder. This was the first time he placed his hands on him. They were ice cold, even through Ritsuka’s shirt. His grip felt like a massive clamp. Ritsuka’s eyes darted around. It was a new moon, they were far away from the street, and no one was around.

“Enough to know when they know it’s too late.” Ritsuka felt a pop in his shoulder as Mafuyu squeezed it. A sharp pain radiated through his torso. Ritsuka let out a sharp yell, trying to pull away. The pop of his shoulder wasn’t the only sound that filled the area. The sound of flesh rending and bones snapping came from where Mafuyu’s head should be positioned. In the dim light from the distant streetlights, Ritsuka saw the glint of hundreds of fracturing, sharp bones angling toward him like teeth. They were in an uncountable number of rows. Mafuyu’s entire head was a lotus of meat and bone.

\-----

Mafuyu packed his clothes in a duffel bag and strung it over his shoulder. The past few months had been too messy for his liking. He wasn’t used to how careful he had to be with electricity and its subsequent technologies around. It was time to start fresh. After all, he had his fill. It was time to feast on someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a wild ride that was to write! Let me know what you think :D


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